


And a Verse For Me

by mayamaia



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayamaia/pseuds/mayamaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon remembers a day with nostalgia, while Illya has other things to focus on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And a Verse For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Summer Solstice Challenge on mfu_scrapbook.livejournal.com
> 
> I wrote the poem first, and then the song and then the story. People keep telling me it actually reads as a song. I'm not so sure, but I will gladly accept such a flattering assessment.

My love, my love  
do you remember me?  
The world we lived is past and gone  
do you remember me?  
The days we shared  
The sweetness saved  
do you remember me?  
Am I the man you think you love...  
do you remember me?

* * *

"Do you remember where we were this time last year?"

Illya Kuryakin glanced over to his partner, then focused again on the wires in his hands. "Not upside down."

"Hey, this could be worse, partner mine. You could be out of reach of that counter."

"It could be better. I could have no distractions."

There was peace and quiet for several minutes. Illya used the time to work quickly, but grew more and more tense, waiting for his partner to break down and start bothering him again. _Perhaps there is as much a disadvantage to knowing him so well as there is an advantage. He is squatting in my mind, just waiting to interrupt._ Kuryakin felt only momentary relief when Solo's voice again cut into his efforts.

"You were in medical."

"I'm usually in medical."

"You were mad at me."

"Also common."

"And, ah, I deserved it."

"There you have the hat trick. Give me your silence for thirty seconds, Napoleon." His partner quieted again, and Illya separated the wire he had identified out of the mass. At last, with a twisting yank, Illya broke solder and removed the triggering wire from the mechanism. Two seconds later, he exhaled in relief at his success.

"Did it?"

"Done."

"Good." Napoleon surveyed his companion. Illya hung limply for a moment to recover, his golden hair fanned out below his reddened face. Then, all in one motion, he surged up to grasp his own ankle. Walking his hands up to the lock, he started to pick it with the very wire he had ripped from the timing mechanism. Napoleon smiled at the efficiency. "You've always been so good at that."

"Hrm?"

"Working with the tools on hand."

"So do you, but yours are usually people." Illya glanced over at his partner and added, "I mean that in the best possible way, of course."

"No, no, I'm sure I deserve it. You rescue the innocents, I convince them to change their minds, break the law, and risk their lives."

"You've done your fair share of rescuing too." The lock clicked and turned. "Got it! I'll have you out as swiftly as I can." Illya grabbed the beam with his hands and swung his legs down, then swung over to Napoleon, hand over hand.

As Illya started to work at his ankles, Napoleon braced Illya's feet as well as he could and smiled wryly. "I'm usually rescuing you."

"Or trying at any rate, and I appreciate the attempt. Get ready to drop." Napoleon let go of Illya's feet in favor of holding his hands ready to catch his own fall, and did so effectively though without dignity or grace. His partner dropped smoothly beside him. "Now, do you think we still have company? Guards, perhaps, who were not told by their superiors of the impending destruction?"

"I bet they noticed their superiors fleeing the now no longer impending destruction and fled themselves."

* * *

Sure enough, the corridors of the power plant were empty of any but the dead. Solo didn't want to dwell on how many of the engineers had died unknowing, and spoke instead of happier things.

"I must admit, most of Margo's attraction was that you wanted her."

"I didn't."

"You wanted her company."

"I resented your high-handed intrusion, arrogant American."

Napoleon grinned, "Well now, you were hardly disposed to offer the girl a chance to recover from her harrowing experience, stuck in blue pajamas in the hospital as you were."

Illya growled, "You weren't interested in her recovery, you were interested in the opportunity to lord it over me."

"Ah but your eyes flashed so brilliantly. Rise, the proletariat!"

"You have never read Marx."

"I wasn't trying to quote. And yes I have. I think that's the control center over there."

For the next several minutes, both agents were occupied with ensuring the complete shutdown of the reactor, eventually leaving the interior of the power plant to report a successful mission and call for backup to keep the reactor safe until it was in the proper hands again. And then they simply had to wait.

* * *

"Very good, gentlemen. Your flight will be tomorrow morning at 10 AM. You may relax for the evening."

Napoleon nodded as if Mr. Waverly could see him over the communicator. "Thank you sir. Solo out."

Illya was giving instructions to the security team when Napoleon found him, ensuring they would be able to cope with any problems that might arise before the plant had a full complement of personnel. Illya acknowledged his presence, gave a few last dire warnings, and extricated himself from the knot of junior agents.

"We are free for the next 15 hours," Napoleon told his partner, with a soft smile, "and I am personally eager to make use of the break. Dinner? It will be on me."

"Ah, a rare treat. I shall accept."

"Only what we deserve, Illya. Besides, we're both safe and sound, that would deserve some celebration all on its own." He paused, and his face grew somewhat drawn. "I hated knowing you were in Karmak's clutches, but not where. Waverly tried to keep me from going after you."

"See what I mean? You do play rescuer sometimes." Illya quirked a smile. "Victor Karmak. It is beautifully ironic that so many of our opponents have named themselves Victor. Wishful thinking is the same everywhere."

Napoleon smiled crookedly at his partner, reached out but pulled his hand back before brushing the blonde locks. "It amazes me that you looked so ...precious, in your blue pjs and your unmussed hair, stuck in a chair for eight hours."

"I could hardly have moved in order to ruin my coiffure. Also I needed to pee."

Napoleon scowled and Illya raised an eyebrow at him. "Napoleon. It's not some great romantic story. It was but an episode in our professional life. What do you expect? I was tired and aching, my head was pounding from the leftovers of that concussion that put me in the hospital in the first place, I had a small cut on my palm from the glass I had tried to use to escape, I was sweaty and I smelled and I needed to pee."

"I was trying to get you out as fast as I could. I was trying to save you that whole night."

"I know, and I appreciate the attempt. It was even successful. But it is hardly a fond memory."

Napoleon sighed. "I suppose so." He remembered Illya's frantic eyes as he opened the cell, afraid less of the fate prepared for him than that Napoleon might share it. He remembered Sheila, the girl who had unexpectedly become part of the drama, and incidentally had proved helpful in the final fight. Napoleon had not been particularly gentle with her, but he had been pressed for time, and her sensibilites were quite simply unimportant under the circumstances.

Napoleon wasn't even particularly annoyed when Illya ended up escorting the girl to her gallery opening, feeling instead that it had some sort of karmic balance. Both deserved better than the treatment he had given them. Yet Illya apologized for taking her away, and sincerely meant it. It was all part of the fond memory for Napoleon: his own callousness, his fears, the urgency. All made the end of the story so very much sweeter, made up entirely of unexpected reprieves.

This time Napoleon did reach out, and let his thumb brush through Illya's hair before the hand came to rest on a shoulder. "Come on, Illya. Let's go get ready for dinner. I'll make the reservations at a French restaurant I know."

"You really do take any excuse to wear a tux, you peacock."

"Maybe I just want the excuse to make you wear one."

* * *

Chez Simone, while undoubtedly French, was a hole in the wall that could barely seat 10. Illya glared at his companion. "This restaurant is hardly black tie."

Napoleon grinned. "No it is not, but I was hardly going to dissuade you from dressing for the occasion." Illya's scowl had less bite than usual, bearing as it did a quirk of rueful amusement at his partner's clever use of his own assumption.

Besides, as small as the restaurant was, the lovely lady singer (a younger, darker version of the lady chef) and the food itself were worthy of his attire. Illya wasn't the only one to be delighted by the meal. Still, Napoleon did have something else still on his mind.

"One year ago..."

"Not again, Napoleon," Illya said, but this time he was smiling widely.

"...you snuck into my room, still dressed in your tuxedo and with a few hairs artfully out of place..."

"I could hardly have allowed you to be kidnapped in the same manner as I was," Illya pointed out.

"And I'm sure that the guard would not have been to your standards even if he hadn't accepted the coffee you gave him."

"He had a lesson to learn." Illya shrugged. "He learned it."

"But laxative, Illya? Really?"

"He learned it well."

Napoleon sighed around his grin. "And you snuck into my room to hold my uninjured hand and watch over me. You told me stories about the girl embarrassing herself at her amusement gallery opening, and joked about the nurse who didn't know how to use a thermometer, and when you left..."

The singer was on a slow, romantic number. Her voice dipped and swirled over the lyrics.

_Another hundred days to come  
 _A journey of the muse's hum..._ _

Illya was smiling silently in that way that Napoleon knew meant he didn't trust his voice, but he might as well have been saying, _I couldn't help it but it was worth it._

Napoleon, suppressing his smile, continued, "When you were about to leave, you paused for a moment, smiling, just as you had before leaving earlier that evening. Then you came back and gradually leaned down to give me a kiss goodnight."

They spent a few moments smiling at each other, though Illya also swallowed, almost indiscernably. Then Napoleon's hand moved and Illya's eyes dropped to follow, and his forehead crinkled a question as he saw the key his partner was pressing into his palm.

"I just thought I'd make it easier to sneak into my room to hold my hand this time."

Illya turned over the key to their hotel room, focusing his eyes on it because it was safer than looking at Napoleon directly, his heart too full to bear public exposure.

His voice quavering and quiet but clear, Illya said the only thing that seemed necessary. "I do know that you love me, Napoleon."

"Ah." Napoleon hadn't been planning to say such a thing, and had a moment of irrational alarm. But it was what he had been attempting, by other means, to express all day. All year even. And it was what he had thought for much, much longer. "Well," he continued, "Good. You should."

The last lines of the song rose and hung in the air between them.

_And for another year with thee_  
 _A verse of loving secrecy  
 _For our sweet anniversary  
 _For you, yes, and a verse for me.___

Illya's eyes remained fixed on the key he turned over in his right hand, but Napoleon stood and took hold of the left, saying, "I still reserve the right to prove it to you later."

Without looking up, Illya's smile broadened as he murmured, "You would."

* * *

This was my prompt:

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE: The song in the restaurant at the end was also written for this prompt. Lyrics are below, [and the tune is here](http://thisisaslongas.tumblr.com/post/56358697832/for-the-summer-solstice-challenge-on-mfu-scrapbook).
> 
> I'll sing for you in sadness  
> I'll sing for you again  
> Just as we've lived our gladness  
> We've stopped too in the rain
> 
> I've wandered rainy passageways  
> A hundred yesterdays  
> Another hundred days to come  
> A journey of the muse's hum  
> From fears and joys  
> For girls and boys  
> For you and I  
> To wander by
> 
> Too swiftly did this path unwind  
> Our youth lies somewhere far behind  
> That purely feathered turtledove  
> Which once I thought was love  
> I now know is a fantasy  
> Of unexamined youth  
> More sweet than that is truth  
> The swiftly shifting song of you and me
> 
> A verse for sorrows  
> One for smiles  
> A verse for long and lonely whiles  
> And for another year with thee  
> A verse of loving secrecy  
> For our sweet anniversary  
> For you, yes, and a verse for me.


End file.
